Mystery publishing, from idea to bookshelf

May 11, 2014

marginalia mystery solved!

Remember the contest about the mystery marginalia, with a prize of $1000? The mystery has been solved!

Daniele Metilli, an Italian computer engineer, has been named the winner. Working with a colleague who is fluent in French, Metilli identified the script of the marginalia (a particular type of 18th Century French shorthand) and translated some of the text. And guess what, this story is particularly library-oriented, because Metilli is studying to be a librarian, and says libraries are the best places for finding mysteries to solve!

“If I didn’t have access to online sources such as Google Books, the Greek Word Study Tool of the Perseus Digital Library and the French corpora of the CNRTL, I probably wouldn’t have won. What great times we live in!” - See more at: http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2014/05/05/mysterious-150-year-old-writing-rare-copy-homers-odyssey-identified#sthash.opikcfal.dpuf

identified the mystery script correctly as a system of shorthand invented by Jean Coulon de Thévénot in the late 18th century. - See more at: http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2014/05/05/mysterious-150-year-old-writing-rare-copy-homers-odyssey-identified#sthash.opikcfal.dpuf

identified the mystery script correctly as a system of shorthand invented by Jean Coulon de Thévénot in the late 18th century. - See more at: http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2014/05/05/mysterious-150-year-old-writing-rare-copy-homers-odyssey-identified#sthash.opikcfal.dpuf

identified the mystery script correctly as a system of shorthand invented by Jean Coulon de Thévénot in the late 18th century. - See more at: http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2014/05/05/mysterious-150-year-old-writing-rare-copy-homers-odyssey-identified#sthash.opikcfal.dpuf